The Paths Life Takes
by honest imp
Summary: Life twists and turns in interesting ways.Seven years have passed since the Dark Lord's fall. And Ginny has returned to Britain to meet the child she gave up. What paths will life lead her down? Warning: minor slash Series: The World Spins On Its Side


Title: The Paths Life Takes  
Series: The World Spins on Its Side  
Rating: PG ( the rating will vary throughout the series)  
Warnings: Slash(implied)-( warnings will vary throughout the series)  
.

A/N: Please comment. I'm addicted to feedback, but I never seem to get any.

The Paths Life Takes

Ginny leaned her head back against the seat, closing her eyes. The British countryside was flying past the train window; the last time she'd seen it had been seven years ago, and yet it seemed as if nothing had changed. She had changed; she was tired and disillusioned with life; her many years as a spy had taken their toll on her. From time to time, she wondered why she bothered to come back at all. There was nothing left here for her; she felt no attachment either to the land or its people. And then she would remind herself that she was tying up one last loose end: a child, her child.

When her fifth year had ended, she vowed to do anything she could to help the Order. She formed contacts among spies for the cause, and then joined their ranks. She was willing to and did whatever it took to gain information. Using Polyjuice potion, she drugged or seduced Death Eaters to further her movement, to bring her beloved Harry the victory he deserved. But in the course of these events, she found herself with child. To hide her actions from her family and to be able to continue serving, she contacted her superior and agreed to the plan he suggested. She gave the child up for adoption because it was the only way.

Years later, she still knows next to nothing about the events. She knows neither the child's gender nor its name, and she knows nothing about the adopted family, all she has is an address. She was told nothing because the less she knew, the less danger there was that she would give something away to threaten the safety of the family. Now she feels she needs to shed this last link to Britain. She would view her child's face and be done with it. Three weeks ago, she composed a letter to the family, and she replays it over and over in her mind, an ever-present mantra in her head, as the train continues its journey.

To Whom It May Concern:

Under the adoption contract that you signed with me seven years ago, there was a visitation clause that stated that I had the right to visit my child at a time when doing so would not be a threat to the security and safety of any of the parties involved. I am shortly going to be returning to Britain, and I have appraised the situation and found there to be no risk in such a visitation. As such, I plan to visit three weeks from today at two o'clock. If this time and date are disadvantageous, determine another. If not, I will see you then.  
ID# 121579006

A day later, the owl had brought back the reply: They are acceptable. We look forward to meeting you.

The train came to a sudden stop and Ginny got up; this was her stop. She made her way down the train car to the exit, and stepped down onto the platform. Her journey was not yet over, however, and she shouldered her bag and began walking. She was slightly nervous as she walked the three miles to the house. When she reached it, she saw it was small and plain, yet warm and welcoming. Off to her left and attached to the house, was a small garden full of bushes and flowers, and enclosed by a white picket fence. As she knocked on the door, she vaguely wondered if her loose white cotton blouse and jeans were appropriate and adjusted the barrette that held half of her hair back. Then the door swung slowly inward to reveal…

"Harry," she said surprised and confused.

"Ginny! What're you doing here? Where were you? I asked around, but nobody knew were you'd gone. It was like you'd just disappeared."

"I was rounding up Voldemort's remaining followers in Ireland." There was a long pause followed by,

"God, Ginny, I'm sorry. I'm interrogating you on the front steps, and I haven't even had the decency to invite you in."

"That's okay," she smiled.

"No, it's not. Come in, and I'll introduce you to my family." He stood aside and gestured with one arm for her to come in. She stepped inside and he closed the door behind her.

Immediately in front of her was a square, honey-colored wooden table and four very plain wooden chairs, beyond that was the kitchen. The kitchen cabinets were the same color as the table, and theres was a matching island as well. Off to her left, was a white-carpeted staircase leading to the upstairs. And to her right was a simple unlit wood burning fireplace.

"Can I offer you a cup of tea?" Harry politely inquired.

"If it's not too much trouble, please."

"It's no trouble at all," he said gesturing for her to sit down and going over to the stove to grab a green clay teapot and its matching handle-less teacups. She pulled out the nearest chair and sat at the table patiently. He walked back over to her. "Actually, we were expecting someone shortly," he said pouring tea into a cup which she accepted gratefully and then sitting down across from her and filling his own cup." So, what's been going on lately?"

"Like I said, I was in Ireland; I've been rounding up rogue Death Eaters for the past seven years. No matter how many we catch, there're always two more to take the place of every one we capture. It's old news anyway; the Ministry's been after them since before the war. What's been going on in Britain? I've sort of lost touch."

"Actually, it's been pretty quite lately-" He was interrupted by the sound of footsteps and her attention was diverted to the stairs. At their foot, she spied a tall, slender blonde woman dressed in jeans and a white long sleeved shirt whispering to a small child with wavy red hair. The women's back was turned, so that all Ginny could see was her white-blonde hair that was pulled back into a ponytail by a soft leather tie and cascaded gracefully down her back. She handed the child a sweater. Thelittle girl grabbed it impatiently and dashed out to the garden through a set of sliding glass doors to Ginny's left, pulling her arms into the loose gray knit sweater's sleeves as she went. The lady bent down to pick up something on the stairs and fold it.

As she did, Ginny, feeling the need to be polite, stood up, walked over, and offered her hand to the woman, introducing herself, "Hi, I'm Ginny Weasley, and you must be Harry's wife." The woman started and stood up, saying laughingly,

"That's not exactly the term I would have used, but close enough." When she turned to face Ginny, Ginny realized that this wasn't a woman at all- it was a man, and not just any man but,

"Malfoy, what are you doing here?" she asked, obviously confused.

"I would think at this point it would be apparent. Harry, why didn't you tell her?" he said accusingly.

"Well, that would have been a bit sudden to spring that on her as soon as she walked in the door. Hello, how are you? Oh, by the way, I'm co-habiting with Draco Malfoy. That would have gone over well. And I never expected her to mistake you for a woman; although, I have to say, it was amusing. Anyway sit down and join us." Harry was red in the face and looked incredibly flustered.

Draco tentatively pulled out the chair closest to the fireplace. "Now where were we?" Draco asked sarcastically, "Oh, I remember, you were calling me Harry's wife!"

"I'm sorry, I was just well, surprised, is all," she stammered.

"It's aright. I'm not going to curse you. Here let me fill you in on what Harry neglected to tell you: We're together. We have an adopted daughter, and we share a house. Any questions?" Draco delivered this to an astounded audience.

"If you don't mind my asking, what are you doing outside the wizarding world in the middle of nowhere?" Ginny questioned.

"I'll take this one," Harry said," Well, basically we want to avoid the press. Can you imagine? We're controversial separately, but put us together and you've got a media sensation. Do you honestly think that either of us want that? Do you think any child should have to deal with that? As things stand right now, very few people even know we're together. Your family knows, but let's say with the exception of Fred and George, they didn't take it well. Fred and George are the little girl's godfathers. Anyway, addressing why we live in the country, it's quite simple. The fewer neighbors we have, the less we have to worry about hiding our magic. So, Ginny, I never got an answer; why are you here?"

Ginny was absorbing all that Harry had told her and looking the sliding glass doors into the garden and didn't hear the question. The little girl was spinning slowly around with one arm up reached and her face to the sky. Her hair flashed scarlet and copper in the afternoon sun. She was surrounded by bubbles: their clear crystal globes shining with tiny rainbows.

"Ginny? Ginny?" Harry called her from her silent contemplation.

"Where did she get the bubbles?" Ginny wondered aloud.

Harry answered absently, "Fred and George gave them to her; they don't pop and they won't blow away. Pretty clever of them actually and very thoughtful." Then he said gently, "Ginny you didn't answer my question. Why are you here?"

"I'm here to visit my child." Her declaration was met with silence, until...

"What?"

"A-At first I thought I had the wrong address," she stuttered. "But then the pieces kept falling in place: the secrecy of the adoption, the lack of information, even the girl's hair color for Merlin's sake."

"Um, actually, I don't think-," Harry began. Ginny interrupted him "… how you were even waiting for somebody at the exact same time."

"Ginny, if you're the mother, then who's the father?" Draco inquired quietly.

"Do you remember how Snape served as a spy during the war?" Draco rolled his eyes. Of course they knew. How could they not know? "Well, I did the same thing except my work was more…well…personal. I drugged and seduced Death Eaters, Harry. I offered up everything I had to the cause. I couldn't keep the baby; my family would be horrified at what I had done. I just couldn't bring myself to ask for their help, and I couldn't carry it with me, a child would have been a target, made me a target. Well, you know the rest of the story." She spoke half to them and half to herself, all the while drawing circles on the table with her finger.

"Do you know which Death Eater was the father?" Draco asked gently. She said quietly,

"No, I don't." Draco decided not to dwell, and Harry, deciding to lighten the mood, asked, " Do you want to meet your daughter?"

"Yes," she smiled.

"Draco could you call her in?" Draco walked over to the door, slid it open, and signaled for the girl to come inside. She skipped over to stand before Ginny, as if for inspection.

"This is Perryn Cidra Malfoy," Harry introduced her. The little girl stood very still as Ginny looked at her; she wore a gray cotton t-shirt with a small pink corduroy heart sown onto the sweater, and she had on a knee-length skirt made out of pink, orange, and red squares of corduroy sown together. And for the first time Ginny could clearly see the girl's face.  
Her face was perfect and open, and she had black eyes. As Ginny examined her, she noticed that the girl's face and hands had an odd gray tint to them. She took a napkin from the dispenser on the table, and wet it. She began wiping the child's face and hands and muttering, "I'm going to kill Fred and George. They should know better than test out their inventions on children."

"Relax Ginny," Harry said laughingly, "The bubbles haven't done anything!" She kept cleaning.

"They have! They've-," she said. She began scrubbing harder, and the girl began to wince and draw back.

Draco cut her off. "She-," he began, but was stopped as something began to happen. Ginny's eyes were drawn to the girl. Something was changing. The child's eyes grew black until no white showed, and her skin grew steadily darker. A gray-green light surrounded her, and her hair blew back and fanned out around her. The light glinted off her hair, highlighting each strand and making it seem almost to glow. Her clothes had become an ivory off-the-shoulder dress. Ginny laid a hand on the girl's cheek. The girl jerked back. Ginny pulled her hand quickly back and cradled it to her chest, glancing back at the girl. Then, the girl's hair began to pale and the glow disappeared. Her skin began to lighten as did her eyes. That's when Ginny noticed the roots of the girl's hair had begun to turn white-blonde and straighten. Her skin was now china white and her eyes were a metallic silver blue. She now wore a blue dress with braided straps and the skirt of which was made out of torn, overlapping scraps of purple and blue gauze. A few stands of hair hanging about her face began to turn cerulean; these strands along with several white-blonde ones pulled back behind her head and knit themselves into a perfect Celtic knot. Finally, tints of blue spiraled out beneath her skin. Perryn turned away coldly and walked upstairs.

"What in Merlin's name happened?" Ginny asked nearly hysterical; she was shaking slightly and looking quite pale.

"That's nothing; Try holding a new baby and thinking it can't breathe because it's turning blue," Draco told her. "She's a Metamorphmagus and her accidental magic's through the roof," Harry interjected helpfully, "Actually, she's only got one other normal form that you didn't see. They vary and change with emotion. I think your cleaning struck a nerve. She doesn't like when people think there's something wrong with her just because-"

" You didn't even see the full transformation with that last form, " Draco cut him off. "At the end, the blue under skin manifests into indigo tattoos. You try taking a four year old covered in tattoos to the supermarket and then explaining their sudden disappearance, or the changes in eye and hair color," Draco interjected. But their words fell on deaf ears. Ginny was now shaking like a leaf and looking at the stairs with stark terror on her face. She swore she could see green eyes glinting through the dimness upstairs.

She stood up abruptly, causing her cup to shatter on the floor. She threw herself at the door and blindly attempted to open it. She practically fell out when the door finally opened. Harry and Draco looked helplessly out the front door at Ginny was she walked hurridly down the lane. Harry sighed, "I wish she'd given us a chance." Draco hugged him to his chest. "She's not worth it." He tilted Harry's face up. "Come. We'll drink some tea. Calm 'Ryn down. You'll feel better." Harry allowed himself to be led back inside and the door closed. And as Ginny walked away down the long lane, she reproached herself over and over, "It's all my fault. It's all my fault."


End file.
